Tips Of The Week

Tip 1:

You can use CCleaner software to clean the TEMP files in Local Settings and your browser. You can also do it manually as mentioned in Question Of This Week.

Tip 2:

Disk Cleanup (Start -> Control Panel -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools) can give a marginal gain in the hard disk space. But, Disk Cleanup just tries to delete or compress old files. Practically, a file can't be deleted just because it is old; you might still need it. Moreover, movie (e.g.AVI) files and music (e.g.MP3) files can't be compressed by Disk Cleanup because they are already in compressed format. That's why, I wouldn't recommend Disk Cleanup at all.

Gain Extra Space In Your Hard Drive

Question Of The Week

How To Gain Extra Space

In Your Hard Drive?

The price of hard disk drives (HDD) has dropped a lot in recent times. Yet, many users are still satisfied with their default 160GB HDDs. The biggest mistake they do is to create the C drive with a small partition, especially in PCs using Vista. When the C drive is almost full, it is natural to think of ways on how to increase the hard disk space. Try the following methods.

1. Modify System Restore

System Restore takes up 12% of disk space in each partition by default. To gain space, reduce the disk space usage allocated for the C drive (Recommended: One GB) and disable system restore in other partitions.

2. Temp Files in Local Settings

Go to C:\Documents and Settings\Your name\Local Settings\Temp. If you don't find "Local Settings" folder, go to Start -> Control Panel -> Folder Options -> View. Select "Show hidden files and folders". Now delete all files in the Temp folder which is situated inside Local Settings.

3. Disable Hibernation

Hibernation is actually a useful feature. It allows you to shutdown the computer without closing your applications, thus saving your work. The next time you boot up your computer, all your previous work will be loaded up automatically. But it requires 1 to 3 GB hard disk space!! If you want to save that space, go to Control Panel -> Power Options -> Hibernate. If Hibernation is on, uncheck the Enable hibernation checkbox and click OK.

4. Temp Files in Your Browser

In Firefox, click on TOOLS and then "Clear Private Data". You can literally delete everything except "Saved Passwords". In Internet Explorer, click on TOOLS. Go to Internet Options -> General -> Browsing History. Click delete to clear everything. Then click on SETTINGS of "Browsing History", and adjust the "Disk Space to Use" amount to something between 50 to 100MB.

5. Uninstall Unused Programs

Go to Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs. Read the list of programs carefully and uninstall large programs which are never or rarely used. Sometimes you may have to visit "Program Files" folder in C Drive, to delete unused program folders which were manually placed by you without an installer. Also look for undeleted set up folders!!

6. Paging File

(For Advanced Users Only)

Paging file is an area on your hard disk which is used by Windows as if it were a RAM. While RAM is physical memory, Pagefile is known as Virtual Memory. Usually, this paging file is located in your C drive and takes a size up to 1.5 times that of RAM. My only recommendation about Pagefile is that if you have a RAM of 3 GB or more in size for 32-bit Windows, you can safely switch it off. (Start -> Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Performance -> Settings -> Advanced -> Virtual Memory -> Change -> No Paging File -> Set -> OK).

iRotate

Program Of The Week

iRotate

If you want to rotate your display for some reason (nowadays pivoting monitors are available), iRotate does it promptly for you. By leveraging the native rotation capabilities of display drivers provided by ATI, nVidia, Intel and others, iRotate achieves display rotation with speed and efficiency. The entire iRotate package, including installation, documentation, and native language support in all the major European and Asian languages, weighs only 125 KB!! iRotate supports multiple graphics cards from various vendors simultaneously, under every multi-monitor enabled operating system from Windows 98 to Vista.

Filext

Website Of The Week

www.filext.com

A short series of letters and/or numerals at the end of a computer filename which is used to indicate the type of file and the software that will be required to open it, is known as File Extension. For example, a text file will have a file extension of ".TXT".

Most of the files in your PC will be shown with a symbol of a program which has been already installed in your PC and with which you can open that file. For such files, you may not see the file extension unless you have unchecked the HIDE THE EXTENSIONS FOR KNOWN FILE TYPES option (Start -> Control Panel -> Folder Options -> View). Sometimes you might see a file without such a symbol because it is not associated with any of the programs already installed in your PC and obviously you can't open that file by clicking on it. In such cases, you will be able to see the file extension below its name even if the above said folder option has been checked. If you don't already know how to open that file, visit this website.

FILEXT is a database of file extensions and the various programs that use them. Simply enter the file extension into the search box. If it is in FILEXT, the data on that file extension will be shown in the results. If it is not in the database, you will be given a link to a page with hints on how to do further research.

It is possible that the search will give you multiple results (same extension for many file types) as there is no central registry or authority for file extensions. Thus, you will have some real work to do. Read the results page carefully; Ultimately you will find out the program to open your file.